E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesGandhi discouraged the notion that democracy meant economic freedom at theexpense of personal liberty, or political freedom without economic freedom.'My conception of freedom is no narrow conception,' he declared in Harijan ofJune 7, 1942. 'It is coextensive with the freedom of man in all his majesty.''If the individual ceases to count, what is left of society?' he asked. To thosewho argued that dictatorships reduce illiteracy, he replied, 'Where a choice hasto be made between liberty and learning, who will not say that the former hasto be preferred a thousand times to the latter?'Democracy means majority rule, Gandhi agreed. But, 'In matters of conscience,'he said, 'the law of majority has no place; ... it is slavery to be amenable to themajority no matter what its decisions are.'Nor was freedom Gandhi's highest law. ‘Not even for the freedom of Indiawould I resort to an untruth,' he said. "We do not seek out independence out ofBritain's ruin.'Gandhi's hostility to violence and untruth, his objection to the omnipotentState which embodies both, and his economic ideas made him anti-Communist.'India does not want Communism,' Gandhi said as early as November 24, 1921.'All Communists are not bad, as all Congressmen are not angels,' Gandhideclared on January 26, 1941. ‘I have, therefore no prejudice againstCommunists as such. Their philosophy, they have declared it to me, I cannotsubscribe to.'The Communists sent spokesmen to convert him. But his instincts led him toreject their teachings.'I am yet ignorant of what exactly Bolshevism is,' he wrote on December 11,1924. 'I have not been able to study it. I do not know whether it is for the goodof Russia in the long run. But I do know that insofar as it is based on violenceand denial of God, it repels me... I am an uncompromising opponent of violentmethods even to serve the noblest of causes.'www.mkgandhi.org Page 373